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Owen came forward and ran his fingers affectionately through the boy's hair. "I was once like you-a Wise One-until I got a little older than you."

The boy frowned up at him. "Really?"

Owen nodded. "I used to think that I had been chosen because I was special and somehow only I was able to commune with some glorious otherworldly dominion. I believed that I was gushing great wisdom. Looking back, I am ashamed to see how foolish it all was. I was made to listen to lessons. I was never allowed to be a boy. The great speakers praised me for repeating back the things I had heard, and when I spoke then with great scorn to people, they told me how wise I was."

"Me, too," the boy said.

Richard turned back to the men. "This is what your people have been reduced to as a source of wisdom-listening to children repeating meaningless expressions. You have minds in order to think and understand the world around you. This self-imposed blindness is a dark treason to yourselves."

The men in front, that Kahlan could see from where she sat holding the boy, all hung their heads in shame.

"Lord Rahl is right," Anson said, turning back to the men. "Until today, I never actually questioned it or thought about how foolish it really is."

One of the speakers shook his fist. "It is not foolish!"

Another, the one with the pointed chin, leaned in and snatched An-son's knife from the sheath at his belt.

Kahlan could hardly believe what she had just seen. It felt as if she were watching a nightmare suddenly unfold, a nightmare she wasn't able to stop or even slow. It seemed she knew what was going to happen before she saw it.

With an enraged cry, the speaker suddenly struck out, stabbing Anson before he could react. Kahlan heard the blade hit bone. Driven by blind rage, the speaker swiftly drew back the fist holding the now bloody knife to stab Anson again. Anson's face twisted in shock as he began going down.

Points of candlelight reflecting off the polished length of razor-sharp steel blurred into streaks as Richard's sword flashed past Kahlan. Even as the sword swept around, the unique ring of steel as it had been drawn accompanied its terrifying arc toward the threat. Driven by Richard's formidable strength, the tip of the sword whistled through the air. As the speaker's arm reached the apex of its swing, as it once more began a deadly journey down, Richard's blade slammed into the side of the speaker's neck and without seeming to slow in the least ripped through flesh and bone, cleaving off the man's head and one shoulder along with the arm holding high the knife. The lightning slash threw long strings of blood against the stone wall of the foundation of the palace of the Bandakar Empire.

As the speaker's head and the one shoulder with the arm attached tumbled through the air in an odd, wobbling spiral, his body collapsed in a heap. The head smacked the floor with a sickening thud and bounced across the carpets, leaving a trail of blood as it tumbled.

Richard swept the crimson blade around, directing it toward the potential threat of the other speakers. Kahlan pressed the boy's face to her shoulder, covering his eyes.

Some of the men fell in around Anson. Kahlan didn't know how badly he was hurt-or if he was even still alive.

Not far away, the gory head and arm of the dead speaker lay before a table set with candles. The fist still held the knife in a death grip. The sudden carnage lying there before them all, the blood spreading across the floor, was horrifying. Everyone stared in stunned silence.

"The first blood drawn by you great speakers," Richard said in a quiet voice to the cluster of cringing speakers, "is not against those who come to murder your people, but against a man who committed no violence against you-one of your own who simply stood up and told you that he wanted to be free of the oppression of terror, free to think for himself."

Kahlan stood, and saw then that there were far more people in the room than there had been before. Most were not their men. When Cara made her way through the silent throng to Kahlan's side, Kahlan took her by the arm and leaned close.

"Who are all those people?"

"The people from the city. Runners brought them the news that the town of Witherton had been freed. They heard about our men being here to see the Wise One and wanted to witness what would happen. The stairs and halls upstairs are full of them. The words that have been spoken down here have spread up through the whole crowd."

Cara was obviously concerned about being close enough to protect Richard and Kahlan. Kahlan knew that many of the people had been swayed by what Richard had been saying, but now she didn't know what they would do.

The speakers seemed to have lost their conviction. They didn't want to be associated with the one among them who had done such a thing. One of them finally left his fellow speakers and made the lone walk over to the boy standing beside the curtain-draped platform, and under Kahlan's protective arm.

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